What I Learned From a Piece of Wood-Part 3

I wrote last week about some of the lessons I learned while getting to assist my hubby at the wood shop.  (Check those out here and here.)  This post is the 3rd installment in this mini-series.

One of the projects the men are currently working on is made from beetle kill pine.  It will be finished this week, but since creating furniture or anything else from wood takes time, it's not done yet.  As I was helping to plane and layout the wood,  I asked if the beetle kill aspect is what gave the wood the beautiful, blue streaks.  Indeed it is.  It's actually a fungus.

Here's your mini science lesson for today...  The beetles (which are only about 5 mm long!) carry the blue stain fungus as they burrow themselves under the bark of the various species of pine trees. Through a series of events, the stain gets into the innards of the tree bark and spreads, eventually killing the tree.  The beetles move on to the next tree and so the plague continues.  What is left is dead pine trees which may or may not be able to be used.  If it sits too long in the forest after it has died, it can begin to rot and breakdown, rendering it unusable for anything beyond firewood...unless some craftsman come along to rescue the dead wood and make it into something beautiful.

Beetle Kill Pine Close up

Beetle Kill Pine

The fungus is what makes the wood beautiful, but it's skill and love that turn it into something extraordinary. Of course, I don't want our trees to die.  I like breathing.  But like attacks on humans, I'm sure this plight of beetles killing trees was meant for harm.  What Satan intended for harm, God allowed good to come from.  When we allow Him, God can take the rotten, stained pieces of our past and make them into something beautiful.  He is a skilled craftsman.  He can take addiction, abuse, unchecked anger, or any other rot that makes us feel worthless as humans, and turn it into something beautiful, something extraordinary.  All we have to do is ask Him to come in and cleanse us and craft us into a new creation.

Make it a beautiful day, friends.

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